If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Sharks are one of the most fascinating creatures on the Earth, though. They are so perfect and efficient at what they do, they have barely changed in 250 million years. It's amazing to watch them swim around, they barely even move yet zip by so fast. I think a Mako can do like 40-50mph in a sprint, or something ridiculous like that.

It's really cool to swim with them, to be honest. I went on two trips to the Bahamas back in highschool, and once each trip we did a shark dive where they fed the sharks. It was eery, from 50-100 feet away you could clearly hear their teeth clanging on the metal bars that the chopped up fish were one. I would guesstimate that there was 10-30 sharks swimming around, although none nearly as big as the one in the pic. Max was maybe 6-8 feet, and those were mostly nurse sharks which are very docile (my dive buddy caught a ride on one). One dive someone saw a 12-14 foot hammerhead, so the divemaster got everyone the fuck out of the water quick.

SPEED
Mako sharks are the fastest swimming sharks and can even leap out of the water. They are also probably among the fastest fish. Estimates of their speed varies; some say that they can swim at about 60 miles per hour (97 kph), while more conservative estimates are about 22 mph (35 kph). There hasn't been enough experimentation on their speeds to have an definitive answer.

Great Whites also jump out of the water, and it's something incredible to see, yay Discovery Channel. Everything Eomer said I agree with - they're perfect, and would live forever if not for we humans killing them off. I would love to swim with them, in a huge steel cage of course, even have a great white chewing on the steel would be something worth seeing, but I'm also terrified of them. In a primal sort of way. But not in a "let's kill them all off" way. I'm scared of them, but don't hate them. Whenever an ad for Shark Week comes up, my palms sweat and I get nervous, but the first words out of my mouth are "Right on, time to set the VCR!"

As cool as sharks are, and as much as they facinate me, if I was that guy on the surfboard and saw that, I would have left a little cartoon outline of myself in smoke as I ran across the surface of the water to get back to shore.

Meh, you don't need to be in a cage when swimming with sharks, unless there are large sharks around. Most times they are all pretty small. When we did the shark dives, they had this dive site they called the Arena because there was a coral formation on the sea floor (depth about 40-50 feet, shallow enough that if the seas were rough visibility got really shitty) that was in a semi-circle, so they had everyone kneel down with their backs to it so that no one would get shocked by a shark swimming by them coming from behind (they really like testing you). So yeah, we just kneeled there, and in the middle they had a concrete block with an eye bolt (about 30-40 feet away), with a rope going up to a dude in a dingy feeding down fish ka-bobs. When there was no food in the water, you would only see maybe half a dozen sharks, swimming in and out of visibility. As soon as the food hit the water though, 10-30 sharks (was hard to count) would come out of nowhere and all start jockeying over the fish. It was an awesome experience, and not really that scary, cause like I said, most were around 3-5 feet long and not interested in humans. Baracudas on the other hand, I was scared shitless of, because they are mean as fuck and twice as dumb.

I've had bad experiences with baracudas, one I was just snorkling out kinda deep when a 6' cuda went right in front of my nose, didn't even see him coming, scared me good. The other was, again, snorkling for 30 minutes, I come out, and these people are there waiting for me and say "did you know a baracuda was following you for the past 10 minutes?"

To get the fish ke-babs for the shark dive, the boat just trawls out two fishing lines basically the entire trip. Whoever is nearby when something bites gets to bring it in. So one time the line starts going and some big dude from Alabama grabs it, and after fighting with it for about 30 minutes, they get the fish up. Turns out it was about a two foot barracuda. The deck hand went to grab it, and the little fucker managed to get a hold of his thumb, got him bleeding pretty good. So the deck hand went to grab a rubber mallet to finish it off. It took him about 5 minutes to beat the thing to death. I decided then and there I would never fuck with one.

To get the fish ke-babs for the shark dive, the boat just trawls out two fishing lines basically the entire trip. Whoever is nearby when something bites gets to bring it in. So one time the line starts going and some big dude from Alabama grabs it, and after fighting with it for about 30 minutes, they get the fish up. Turns out it was about a two foot barracuda. The deck hand went to grab it, and the little fucker managed to get a hold of his thumb, got him bleeding pretty good. So the deck hand went to grab a rubber mallet to finish it off. It took him about 5 minutes to beat the thing to death. I decided then and there I would never fuck with one.

I've heard real horror stories about Barracudas. There was actually this documentary on the news one day about a lady who went out on a fishing trip with her family for the day in Florida. While they were fishing, one of their lines got a tug so the wife grabbed it and started reeling it in. When they got the fish to the boat, they saw it was a barracuda and the fish lept out of the water, into the boat...and seriously mangled the poor wife's leg. It severed a major artery in her leg and she nearly bled to death on the boat before they were able to get back and get her to a hospital. Apparently it really bit her up good, not just in that one spot either.

I'm deathly afraid of sharks. Two summers ago I was in the ocean with a friend of mine, we weren't out that far(were still touching the ground). I was laying with my chest on my body board when I turned around and saw the fin of a shark not to far from me. There were a few sighting of a couple shark near where we usually would go body surfing at, but didn't think anything of it until I saw the fin. After that I was like there is no way I'm going in the water again. After we got out(when we saw the fin disappear) you could still see the shark swimming around. I'm sure the reason why it was there was because we were near one of the docks. Alot of time if you are on the docks while people are fishing you can see maybe a couple of sharks swimming near by.

The only water mammel I have ever touch not in a zoo or sea world was a dolphin. There use to be this resturant that was located in one of the coves and while you are out on the patio dolphins would swim up to you and so we really big turtles.

when we went to VA Beach a couple summers ago, that's exactly what we saw about 10-15 feet off to the side of us, maybe waist deep water at high tide....I've told myself and told myself that it was a dolphin but now I'm thinking "ok so sharks do ride the surf too..."

/adding salt content to the Atlantic Ocean, one shark sighting at a time

Sharks are incredible. Perfect. Hit an evolutionary gold star and haven't had the need to change since. I'll watch any documentary on sharks anytime. They fascinate me, but also hit something deep down that scares the crap out of me. The thought of being out in the water and seeing that silhouette slowly taking shape, coming towards me makes the backs of my knees do strange things. I do not hate them at all, I think they should be preserved just as much as the whales, but they still instill a terror beyond primal.

PS: Like Vini, small sharks I can handle (though I still really wouldn't want to run into one in the ocean unless under controlled circumstances). I remember finding a dead baby hammerhead once, about a foot in length, I thought it was the cutest, coolest thing, but even at that size, the teeth were wicked nasty. Didn't help that it had washed up on the beach in Florida that we were staying at, made me wonder where mom and dad were.

But if I were to ever see what that guy in the picture is seeing, the shadow/silhouette THAT big, my brain would probably explode. At least I wouldn't come back as a zombie.

That's one hell of a fake, then. Looks pretty real to me. Just look at the dorsal fin, how it sort of has the distorted ripple effect on it, even though you can't really see the ripples on the water around it. If it is fake, someone spent a lot of time on it.